Gymnastics teams work out jitters on opening night

Some were able to disguise their opening night jitters.

It's not an easy thing to do, especially when things go wrong, even for seniors who have been though it three times before. Monday's gymnastics opener at Bloomington South is just the beginning of the season but everyone wants to make a good first impression.

There's stress, a few tears, reasons to smile and plenty of ice afterward as everyone starts rounding into meet shape.

"I saw a lot of girls really determined to do things tonight that we've been working on," South coach Michelle Stroud said. "We watered some things down because it just wasn't hitting. We want to be safe. It's the first meet, let's just try to hit a clean routine.

"Plus, we're trying to build stamina and rebuild it from some of them who were off a lot of this summer. They have the adrenalin, but they are exhausted by the end. That last tumbling pass (on floor) is rough for everybody."

The Mustangs wanted to keep their opener as low-pressure as possible and seniors Addison Goerges and Harlie Robbins did a good job of that. Goerges always looked like she was having fun from the stuck landing on her vault to start the night, to her floor routine at the end.

"I think the best thing is having fun and it's not as much pressure as club, I would say," Edgewood Andrea Stroud said. "Just showing them there's pressure, but it's fun pressure. You don't need to be freaking out, I want you to have fun this meet and we can point out, this is where we're weak, this is where we need to work on it."

This meet is always a reminder for how to deal with adversity.

"The determination came through," Michelle Stroud said. "Morgan (Cockerill) on floor, rolled her ankle three times tonight. I told her, 'Please don't hurt yourself. I don't want your softball coaches coming after me.'

"She laughed but her tears were out of frustration. She wasn't trusting herself to throw those skills and she can. Once she did it, she had that determination, 1000 percent, and there was a lot of relief."

Between jitters and tired legs, beam bit back hard, with all three teams counting a lot of falls.

"Beam is always, in my opinion, the hardest one to get ready," North coach Andrea Smith said. "Because it takes a lot more endurance than people realize and especially when you're doing it toward the end of the meet.

"It was our last event, so they're already tired. And then you have to adjust to every single beam and this beam is very different from the one we practice on. So they were weren't ready to make those adjustments, but we'll be ready for the next time when we come down for the South Invite."

North wins team title

Bloomington North made the best impression on the judges, scoring a 103.2 while South had a 99.225 and Edgewood a 95.525, all with plenty of positive moments to build on.

"Though the older kid might not look stressed, they are," Smith said. "Everyone gets those first-meet jitters and we've just got to work them out.

"We're going to have them the rest of this week. We're going to have them against Columbus North and on Saturday at the Franklin Central Invite. It's just going to take a while to get comfortable again. They're going to be tired this week with having three meets."

North is seeking a third straight trip to state at the end of the year. This week is a bit of a stress test to see where they stand.

"We did a lot of upgrades tonight and we still haven't done them all," Smith said. "We added in some new skills on every event, so I'm proud of them for already getting those out of the way. And we haven't even put in all the things that we need to. We just wanted to test out some of those skills. Everyone hit some sort of goal in my opinion, we just looked pretty decent for the first meet."

Sofie Garcia won the all-around title with a 35.375, winning vault (9.0), bars (9.25) by a wide margin and was second on beam (8.575).

"Vault and bars were great but she was not happy with her bars and floor," Smith said. "She doesn't want to fall at all and wants nothing below a 9 on her events."

Dede Eberle, a track standout back in gymnastics, was top three on vault, bars and floor.

"She stood up her Tsuk (vault) and that's her first time ever competing that," Smith said.

Jessica Floyd won floor (9.075) with her new routine and beam (8.625) to take third in the all-around (34.225).

Kawanishi, Gautier lead way for South

South senior Maddie Kawanishi was second in the all-around at 34.4, taking second on bars (8.5) and floor (8.9) and fourth on beam, suffering a fall early in her routine and after hitting in warmups.

"She's really good about mentally coming back and going to the next event," Michelle Stroud said. "She did great on bars and hti two really good vaults, which has been a struggle for her because it's a new vault."

Sophomore Chloe Gautier was fourth in the all-around (33.525) and top six on all four events.

"I was pleased with a lot," Michelle Stroud said. "I know we had a lot of mistakes and falls, but Chloe did an awesome job tonight. She's not been very confident in her skills and to see her tonight kind of breathe and hit some her routines was good.

"She flipped a vault tonight. She was wasn't sure if she was going to, so that was a really great start for her."

Goerges tops for Edgewood

Edgewood's top performer was Goerges, who sixth in the all-around and tied for second on vault (8.85).

"That was amazing, the stuck landing and everything," Andrea Stroud said. "She was happy with it. We were happy with it. And on her first event, having her do that was great."

Sophomore Bella Carson was fifth on beam. The other youngsters are just getting started.

"These freshmen are hungry," Stroud said. "They want it. As soon as we were done they were like, 'OK, this is what I need to work on.' That's amazing, I don't even have to tell you."

Results

BLOOMINGTON NORTH 103.2, BLOOMINGTON SOUTH 99.225, EDGEWOOD 95.525

VAULT: 1. Sofie Garcia, N, 9.0; T2. Addison Goerges, E, 8.85; Dede Eberle, N, 8.85; 4. Jessica Floyd, N, 8.75; 5. Chloe Gautier, S, 8.7; 6. Maddie Kawanishi, S, 8.65.

BARS: 1. Garcia, N, 9.25; 2. Kawanishi, S, 8.5; 3. Eberle, N, 8.325; 4. Gautier, S, 7.9; 5. Floyd, N, 7.775; 6. Audrey Freeman-Day, S, 7.75.

BEAM: 1. Floyd, N, 8.625l 2. Garcia, N, 8.575; 3. Gautier, S, 8.5; 4. Kawanishi, S, 8.35; 5. Bella Carson, E, 7.775; 6. Claire Dann, N, 7.65.

FLOOR: 1. Floyd, N, 9.075; 2. Kawanishi, S, 8.9; 3. Eberle, N, 8.775; T4. Dann, N, 8.575; Garcia, N 8.575; 6. Gautier, S, 8.425.

ALL-AROUND: 1. Garcia, N, 35.375; 2. Kawanishi, S, 34.4; 3. Floyd, N, 34.225; 4. Gautier, S 33.525; 5. Eberle, N, 32.725; 6. Goerges, E, 31.525.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington North, South, Edgewood gymnastics fight jitters in opener